Introducing RadPivotGrid for WPF/Silverlight

We are extremely excited to present the new RadPivotGrid control in our SL/WPF suite which we sometimes refer as the “missing link” between the standard data grids and full-blown interactive business reporting solution. And all this functionality is now just a toolbox-click away from your apps. We promise - if the world does not end today, you will be wondering how you have developed your business apps without this component before. What’s the best about it however is that your end-users will simply love it – the Pivot Grid provides UI very similar to the well-known MS Excel counterpart.

RadPivotGrid for WPF/Silverlight is still beta, but it already has a list of great features. Let’s take a look at the major ones.

With RadPivotFieldList you will feel the real power of RadPivotGrid. With this control you are able to configure almost every aspect of RadPivotGrid. For example, modify row and column grouping, configure aggregations, apply filtering and sorting, set different calculations, etc. Also, you may use the Defer Updates checkbox to apply all changes at once (when Update button is clicked) or automatically applying any change you have made.

You can use integrated Dialogs to configure RadPivotGrid:

More information about RadPivotFieldList can be found in our online help.

RadPivotGrid allows you to apply sorting on your columns and rows. Naturally, the sorting can be ascending or descending, but in addition to that RadPivotGrid gives you the ability to sort based on totals. So in an easy manner you can, for example, sort by total sales and determine which of your products are performing well. In the image below the items are in ascending order based on the sum of the sales for each product:

The sorting can be changed at runtime by using RadPivotFieldList. More information about the sorting mechanism of RadPivotGrid can be found in our online help.

The data in RadPivotGrid can be filtered based on several conditions to give you a view on specific details or just to make the report shorter. There are three types of filters you may use on your RowGroupDescriptions/ColumnGroupDescriptions.

Label filter - filters the report based on the Header name.

Value filter - filters the report based on one of the aggregates used.

Top 10 filter - filters the report based on one of the aggregates used, but shows top/bottom results of applied filter.

For example, you can set LabelFilter to show only items which contain “P”:

Instead of presenting default total numbers, Calculations give you the ability to analyze your data in a different way. For example, what percentage of the GrandTotal is the value in a particular cell. Other examples would be how each item is contributing to the GrandTotal or how items differentiate between each other. The applied calculation can be set in your code or at runtime by using RadPivotFieldList.

On the image below you can see how each item in RadPivotGrid is presented as percent of the GrandTotal.

More information about different calculations that you can use with RadPivotGrid can be found in our online help.

RadPivotGrid has several predefined aggregate functions that you can use. You can choose between sum, average, count, max, min, or something more complicated like standard deviation, variance, or product. All this in the easiest possible manner – just one line of code or a couple of clicks with RadPivotFieldList. In the image below you can see RadPivotGrid with average aggregate function applied:

More information about Aggregate Functions can be found in our online help.

RadPivotGrid supports all of the three most widely used report layouts: Tabular, Outline and Compact. You can set each of them on your rows and your columns and this way can you achieve nine different views of RadPivotGrid. And if this is not enough, you can set the position of subtotals and grand totals. For instance, you can hide the subtotals and move the grand total of columns to be on the left as demonstrated here:

More information about Layouts and Totals Position can be found in our online help.

RadPivotGrid shows ToolTips for each cell. Just move the mouse over one cell and you will see information about its value and associated aggregate, column, and row. You can also set your own ToolTips or simply disable them.

And here it is – one of the main features you’ve been asking for is going to rock you. RadPivotGrid makes the access to OLAP cubes as easy as pie. Currently you can choose between our XmlaDataProvider and AdomdDataProvider (only available for WPF) depending on your server connection needs. We have used Adventure Works DW 2008R2 sample cube with group descriptions Calendar Year and Country dimensions for rows, Product Category for columns and the measure Reseller Order Quantity as aggregate description to create the following report:

How to use XmlaDataProvider and AdomdDataProvider can be found in our online help.

RadPivotGrid can be populated with data from OLAP Cube. But this is not enough for us – we are constantly improving our OLAP support and one of our newest features is KPI support. What is KPI? Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is a business metric that helps define and gauge the progress of an enterprise in meeting their business goals. Now with RadPivotGrid you have the ability to use KPIs that are defined on the server and measure performance in a very easy manner.

You can see the different indicators here – red diamond stands for negative performance, the gray triangle is for acceptable and green circle is the positive performance indicator. As you see it is very easy to check the performance of different parts of your company – for example the revenue indicator for 2008 is positive, but for 2009 it is negative.

And this is not everything. RadPivotGrid is going to rock you like never before. Above mentioned features are only the basics, we continue working on different improvements and features, but until they are ready you can send us feedback for these ones. And don’t forget – the official release is just around the corner and very soon will be able to unleash the full power of RadPivotGrid. Don’t miss it!

About the author

Rosen Vladimirov

Rosen Vladimirov is a XAML support specialist with several years of experience in the support area. His main responsibility is answering tickets related to RadPivotGrid. You can follow him on twitter @rosen_vl.